Banana and PB warrior smoothy

Amazing anytime snack! I've discovered this new raw vegan protein powder.  It doesn't have all the added bonuses of Vega one, but it is an amazing alternative to the crappy vegetarian stuff I've been using.  Plus it tastes just fine with almond milk (or coconut milk) and ice!

Smoothy - can eat it with a spoon its so thick! 

- 1.5 frozen banana
- 2 tbsp natural peanut butter
- scoop of warrior blend (vanilla) 
- handfull of ice 
- cover with coconut/almond milk 
- I needed to add a bit of water because it was too thick for my ninja

Three weeks in summary...

Ok let me see where to start. (In point form)
- I am still vegan and going strong (I did however enjoy some fish a couple of times in the last month though)! Meh.  I'm only vegan to feel good and be healthy, and I feel good and healthy when I eat fish!
- I've created all sorts of fun new things, like chili cheese popcorn and cashew cheese.
-I stopped drinking caffeine before my last race and just haven't drank it since, only decaf and the occasional green tea. Mostly rooibos or herbal.
- We went to Sudbury for a week and I did some extreme open water swimming with my brother Ian (the varsity swimmer), mostly extreme for me because the waves were probably 40-50cm high.
-My knee has been seizing up and causing me a ridiculous amount of pain, so I had to cut back on my running to counter that issue.  More biking and swimming to make up for that.
- This past week I have been in my school getting set up in my new office because I don't have a classroom, which I am very happy about!
- Not so happy to find out that my teaching assignment is literally to split grades the whole week. Get this I am teaching science (in french) to : a 2/3split, a 3/4 split, a 4/5 split and a 5/6 split. Yay me!~
But once I got my head around the copious amounts of science units I need to know (20 in total), at least only 5 at a time :)  ha ha I got kind of excited because I get to teach the fun stuff.  You know the outdoor lessons, the experiments, the field trips, the scientist/dorky stuff!  And because I'm me, I'm starting with the units that I love the most, plants, ecosystems, habits and human body.  I am going to have a blast this term.  I selfishly choose these units because they are by far way up my alley and they will allow me to gain my teaching confidence back.  Geeze it's been almost 5 years since I worked in a school.

- Topic change!  I just made a butternut squash soup (squash, a few stalks of celery, 1 onion, 1 large carrot, a sweet potato and a handful of garden herbs -thyme, savory and sage) and the coup de resistance was that I added some coconut oil to it and some cremed coconut at the end, just a tbsp or so.  And WOW!   sooooo creamy and good!

-Topic change AGAIN! My big race! The culminating event of my entire summer's worth of training....was this Sunday and it wasn't what I was prepared for or anticipated. At all.  The evening before the event they sent out an email telling us that we couldn't swim in the water due to bacteria levels, so they were changing the triathlon to a duathlon.  So that meant I would run 2.5k, bike 20k then run another 5k.  I was really upset when I found this out because I am a strong swimmer and between swimming and my fast biking I would have a good enough advantage to possibly place.  The other thing that I found out was that most super fast runners are terrible swimmers (grrr) so I lost my advantage while the runners gained theirs.  The day was hot (in the 30s) and it was a bit windy (not too bad).  All in all I did ok.  I placced 7th, the bike portion was amazing.  I was flying and feeling really good.  The first run part was awful, I felt like garbage, and the transition from run to bike was really sloppy (since I had never done it before).  And the second run was better than the first, in fact I think I got negative splits (go figure, I gues it takes my body a while to get used to the idea of running).. Anyway, Mark and the kids tried to cheer me but they missed most of it because they didn't have an attention span long enough to stay in one spot.  They saw me off. and that was about it.  They missed the finish because I arrived before the mc was even calling out ppls names... ( I guess that was a good sign).   But I now know that duathlon is not for me,  7th out of 49 I think.  The other thing I figure is if I had done the shorter distance, based on my times from the last tri/and yesterdays times I would have come in either 2nd or 3rd!  So all in all not a bad race day!

So that pretty much sums it up.  My first day of work in 5 years starts tomorrow, Mark is home full time with the kids (the two that aren't in school full time) and I will be getting back into some type of gym routine again! With the addition of swimming, spinning and running at least once a week.  OH that reminds me, my knee is much better since a week ago someone pointed out to me that runner's are in fact supposed to land on the balls of their feet NOT their heals... like I was.  Duh I wonder if that was causing my knee pain.  Well I worked on that and didn't feel a single twinge during my run on Sunday.

This is a picture from the Niagara race.  For this race I got Scott from Rock and Road cycle to put red tape on my handle bars! (they have magic I've been told) Placebo or not, I loved the bike portion of the race!

Pina Colada... vega good!

Vega style!

About 1/4 pineapple, 1/2 can coconut milk, vega smoothy pack, and ice.  Blend!

Serve and Enjoy!!!

Vegan Update

In 2 days I will have been vegan for two full weeks.  I think I passed the ultimate test this past week.  Saying no to both bacon and GF non-vegan treats.  Actually I truly don't miss the meat.  I've been eating so many new dishes because I'm being forced out of my comfort zone.  I realized that if I really wanted bacon, I could make it from young coconut.  Or just go to the Naked Sprout, they have a vegan BLT!

 Anyway I wanted to share with you that being vegan in a house of meat eaters isn't that hard.  Last night I made nacho's for 5 of us.  Mine was vegan, Patrick's was dairy free, Luke's didn't have tomatoes, Mark's had no peppers... you get the point right.  Everyone likes their food just a little different from the other.  Sooo this is what it looks like in my kitchen on a typical diner!

Right: ground chicken with garlic and chili powder... Left can of aduki beans, mushrooms, chili powder and garlic

I heated it until the mushrooms wilted and turned dark.

The assembly station. 

In the oven at 350F for 20 minutes. 

So just for the record, I didn't go vegan because I have any animal right's issues.  I've gone vegan to try to clean out my system.  I want my body to run as efficiently as possible and from everything I read meat as a source of protein just isn't what I want.  I am amazed at how much my training has improved over these last few weeks.  In fact I can't even remember the last day that I took off training.  I've done something every single day and doing it well at that.  I biked 52km yesterday and today ran 7km.  Tomorrow I've got a 25k planned and a short run. Tuesday is power yoga and tri-training with the club, Wednesday is swim/bike....you get the picture!

 I'm eating tons of seasonal fruit (I love that I can do that) I am not hungry because I eat often and really well, my body is shedding the extra weight it gained in July, I am able to run further, bike further/faster, swim faster, with less rest needed between, and all while keeping a lower heart rate!  All in all, not to bad.  I've also been reading Brandon Brazier's The Thrive Diet book and learning tons of fun new tips.  Like how yummy nutritional yeast is, but to boost it's already awesome nutritional content, put it in the coffee grinder with raw sesame seeds, place in a shaker and add as a "cheesy" topping!

 Tonight I made air popcorn, melted coconut butter over it, and used my new topping (plus a dash of salt)... wow it was amazing! I also put a bit of chili powder on it to see if I would like them together... Duh! of course they went well together, chili cheese popcorn!  Clean and healthy!

The food I ate today!

The food I eat in a day... are you curious?  I hope I can remember everything I ate actually.  Today was a long day. 


Breakfast:
1/2 GF Oats
1tbs raw almond butter
small peach (cut into chuncks)
a dash of cinnamon for flavour
2 tsp chia seeds

coffee
water

and because I wasn't satisfied with this I made some turkey sausages on the bbq, and made a salad. 

Snack1 - salad
1.5 turkey sausages
a handful of cherry tomatoes (my cute daughter picked them for me)
cucumber cubed
herbs from the garden (basil/parsley/oregano)
flax seed oil
apple cider vinegar

water
coffee with almond milk and ice

Lunch- stir fry
tempeh
green beans
broccoli
spinach
onions
a splash of curry sauce (no salt added)

Snack
vega chocolate smoothy in unsweetened almond milk
water with electrolyte pack (I'm using Nuun right now, mostly just because I have them)

I did a 90minute hot yoga at this point so I had another nuun water

Post workout snack (not healthy but I felt like I earned a treat)
Bumblebee bar
apple

Diner
sliced browned tempeh (with a tiny bit of coconut oil in my cast iron pan)
giant spinach salad
onions
cucumbers
1/4 apple sliced in it
a handful of GF Food Should Taste Good Chips (the multi-grain ones)
2 tbsp hemp hearts
dressing: 1/2 pack of vega tropical smoothy mixed with apple cider vinegar, flax seed oil and water
a handful of grapes for desert

water
1 can of Growers dry apple cider

snack-
1/3 cup popcorn (made a-la brown paper bag method)
1tbsp melted coconut cream (it is less refined than the oil and has a stronger coconut/sweet taste)
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp of chili powder 
a pinch of salt (some good stuff because I rarely use it) = mix the oils, chili powder and salt together first then drizzle over popcorn -then mix it up to coat

more water

ps. every time I write water I am consuming about 700ml of water (it's the 20oz (venti) starbucks water bottle)

All in all not a bad day for eating clean, I did watch Forks Over Knives today and am wondering if I'm getting bloated because of the meat I'm eating.  Otherwise I feel amazing! I basically eat like this most days, I'm getting most of my protein from vegetable sources (either tempeh/vegetarian protein powder/vega -One or smoothy/lentils/legumes).  But I do still have poultry in my diet and fish.  I've cut out completely gluten (that's been a while) eggs, red meats and dairy.  Interesting to note, my mom has an egg intolerance. ???  And now I have discovered that my son breaks out into a rash when he has dairy.  We had him off for a while and the rash cleared up but this week he stole some ice cream out of the freezer when we weren't looking and hoovered a ton of it and Voila rash on his face is back!  Well we have since found the freezer key and looked the freezer.  Casein...  I must really do some more research on this protein! 

Clean Fast food (from a can and the freezer)

Ok I get it, we are busy, too tired, feeling blah, long week... etc... So today I made my cheat meal.  So good and healthy and something that you can find in the freezer at the grocery store and with the cans!  Seriously the places we are told to stay away from. 

Try it, mix them together and warm in a pan!

All fast food is served in a fast food container.  In our house giant coffee mugs are the dish to be had!  Served with Multigain chips (Food Should Taste Good)

And Desert!!!!!

Veggie Pulp Crackers

So again I was juicing today, basically to empty out the fridge of the veggies that were starting to go bad.  It was either juice or make soup.  And usually I just compost the pulp but today I was feeling the need to experiment.  Of course I didn't record my ingredient amouts... intuitive baking has it's drawbacks, but I can tell you how I created mine.  And know that anything goes here. Crackers are crunchy so you don't want to add egg, you will need oil to help bind everything and of course some type of flour, or you will pretty much end up with veggie leather! 

Here is the juice that I made: I used a cucumber, celery, spinach, apple, lemon, carrot, zucchini and a bit of ginger.

Ingredients: (again you have to be able to play around here)

• veggie and fruit pulp left over from juicing 
• half an avocado (because I figured the dough needed some healthy fats)
• flax seeds (every good cracker has them right?)
• coconut oil (melted, about 2tbsp)
• a splash of agave
• italian herbs
• arrowroot flour (or any other type you want) I was going for GF
• a tiny bit of baking soda

 Directions:

So basically I mashed the avocado into the pulp, added the flax seeds, oil and agave.  I mixed all the wet ingredients first.  Then combined the dry ones separately and then added them to the mixture. It's important to tell you here that I have no idea how much flour I actually added. I was adding it mostly till I got a dough consistency.  Which means I did have to add a bit after I had pre-mixed the original dry ingredients.  Next I flattened out the mixture on the parchment lined baking sheets. I tried to make it as thin as possible, but even so, some places were thicker than others, to deal with this, I basically cut the thin pieces out of the pan and put the thick ones back in for longer cooking time.  I had the oven at 350F and initially put them in for about 15 minutes.  This wasn't nearly long enough, so I basically stood around the oven, cutting out the crispy pieces and putting the rest back in the oven until the whole lot was nice and crunchy.  I had two cookie sheets full.

At first I tried to press the batter onto the cookie sheet with my hand but soon realized I needed to find a much better way to flatten this out.  So I added a sheet of parchment paper on top and pressed it in this way. 

Pressed and rolled with a cup (sure a rolling pin would work too)

Very flat and very thin. And Green!!!!

They baked.  And the parchment just peels right off!  easy peasy!

Cooling off on rack before putting them away. 

Pretty thin :)

Crackers topped with plain greek fat free yogourt, cucs and cherry tomato.

Crackers topped with almond butter and sliced strawberry.  Yum!

What is Dahl???

It's vegan  (or can be) and it's Indian, but I just made it with my own ingredients.  Meh who cares, I made my dish even before looking up what dahl is.  I had tasted the dahl made at The Naked Sprout. and decided to see if I could replicate it, without knowing what was in it.  I'm proud to say I'm happy with the results.  Now I just need to find out how off or close I actually was.  I know mine was slightly different because I didn't have any chick peas or lentils left in my house (apparently those are the main ingredient) go figure I make dahl without them..
I used crushed tomatoes, a can of beans, and a can of coconut milk, then I just added sweet potato, carrot, celery, onion, grated zucchini, parsley (I'm not sure why, it just looked so pretty in my fridge I wanted to use it) and curry powder. 

Well it looks weird I must admit, it tasted fine. But I think if I did it again, I would cut back on the tomato and add something to make it sweeter.  I would also steam the sweet potato first and obviously add chick peas and lentils.  It's kind of more like Dahl Soup!